A thrice-widowed woman is now on trial in the death of her second husband who was gunned down outside his New Orleans home in the spring of 2006.

Emma Raine, 52, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 38-year-old Ernest Smith.

Her third husband, James Raine, had been implicated in Smith's death in what prosecutors called a plot to benefit from life insurance proceeds. But Raine too was shot to death five years ago.

Emma Raine, 52, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of her second husband, 38-year-old Ernest Smith

Emma Raine has only been charged in Smith's death, but a prosecutor previously made it clear that her other two husbands' deaths were suspicious.

While it has been more than seven years from the time Smith died until Raine was arrested in his death in 2013, she had long been on police radar.

'Please be advised that the beneficiary, Emma Smith, wife of the deceased, cannot be ruled out as a suspect in the death of Ernest Smith,' a New Orleans detective wrote to an insurance investigation company in a July 12, 2006, letter.

By the time Emma Smith was arrested in that case, she already had a new name, Emma Raine, and was again, a widow.

Her third husband, 37-year-old James Raine, was shot to death in 2011 at the couple's Pearl River County, Mississippi home.

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Emma Raine was out of town at the time, but authorities still harbored suspicions.

'She is a suspect in that James Raine case,' Pearl River County Sheriff David Allison said in a 2015 interview.

'And through investigating that case we were able to get some information that New Orleans needed and passed it on to them,' Allison added.

No arrests have been reported in James Raine's death.

Emma Raine has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Ernest Smith.

A jury was selected on Tuesday and opening statements began on Wednesday in New Orleans.

Assistant District Attorney Laura Rodrigue warned jurors the case would be complicated.

'In this particular case we are going to need diagrams,' Rodrigue said in an opening statement.

Alfred T. Everette, (left) the adoptive brother of James Raine, third husband of Emma Raine (right), was charged with being the trigger man in Ernest Smith's death

No eyewitness testimony or physical evidence will link Emma Raine to the killing, Rodrigue said.

But witnesses will testify the trigger man, James Raine's adoptive brother Alfred 'Terry' Everette, admitted killing Smith at the urging of Emma and James Raine, for a share of life insurance money, Rodrigue said.

She added that documents will show that Emma bumped up the value of policies on Smith over the years before his death.

Defense attorney Martin Regan's view of the case: James Raine and Terry Everette plotted Ernest Smith's death without involving Emma.

He cast the late James Raine as an opportunist who seduced Emma as she suffered through an unhappy marriage to Smith and plotted Smith's death to get her money.

'This case is about greed and money, infidelity and a guy named James,' Regan said.

He stressed that Emma Raine has never been arrested in James Raine's death.

'Who kills James Raine? Was it another jealous husband?' Regan asked.

Everette was convicted of second-degree murder in December 2014. Prosecutors said he had been promised — by James and Emma Raine — $10,000 from an $800,000 life insurance benefit.

His appeal is pending at the state Supreme Court.

It was unclear whether jurors will hear testimony about the death of Emma Raine's first husband, Leroy Evans, who died while hospitalized in 1994 after he was hit by a car.

No arrests were ever reported in that case, but during Everette's trial, prosecutors called his death suspicious.